You Never See the Results of Your Work.

Heroes Remember

You Never See the Results of Your Work.

Transcript

In the same ship, in the St. Laurent, we were again set offshore to meet a convoy. And we came across a submarine. At that time, in 1940, we didn’t have radar, so one spent a lot of time with binoculars to your face looking out for things. And I was on watch on the bridge when I saw a submarine on the surface, about a mile ahead of us. And the other people saw it about the same time. So we attacked the submarine. It dove before we could shoot at it. We attacked it for about seven hours with depths charges. We felt we’d destroyed it. It was analysed later that we had, in fact, sunk the submarine. But it took seven hours of firing off depth charges. I think we used all our depth charges, maybe about 20 tons of TNT, something like that. Sometimes sinking submarines is unsatisfactory business, because you never see the results of your work. Myself and the men who worked for me, we operated the submarine detection equipment. It was called the ASDIC, it’s now called sonar. It was the only way of holding the submarine. It sends out a sound beam and you have to, you get echoes off the submarine and have to figure out what to do next. Also, in the same ship, we were in a convoy and we were attacked by a half a dozen submarines. And one of the escorts was hit by a torpedo. It was a British sloop, a warship, and the crew were taken off by another ship and the sloop didn’t sink. My ship was told to, I was lieutenant, was told to go back and try and rescue this ship that had, this sloop that had not sunk. So we did that and I was the boarding officer. I took the crew over to put the wire, the towing wire, on the ship so our destroyer could tow it. So we were in a boat with a half a dozen sailors, a row boat I might say, and we got the line on the ship. She was towed for a while and then she started to sink and we managed to let the line go and the ship sank right beside us, like that. So, you know, I mean... A couple of bodies drifted up from the ship, but I mean that was coincidental.

Description

Mr. Welland describes a successful attack on a German submarine, and the attempted rescue of a crippled Royal Navy sloop.

Robert Welland

One of five children, Robert Welland was born in Oxbow, Saskatchewan on March 7, 1918. His parents immigrated to Canada from England, where his father had been an officer in the British Merchant Navy. Influenced by his father, Mr. Welland decided at the age of 14 that he would some day be a warship’s captain and an admiral. In 1936, he joined the Royal Canadian Navy, but had to go to England and join the Royal Navy in order to obtain officer training. His first active wartime service was aboard the F class destroyer, HMS Fame. Aboard her, he was involved in the rescue of survivors of the Athenia sinking, and the destruction of U-353. Mr. Welland then joined HMCS St. Laurent; she took part in the Dunkirk evacuation and the rescue of survivors from the Arindora Star torpedoing. In 1943, he assumed captaincy of HMCS Assiniboine; this vessel was involved both in convoy duty and harassing German shipping in the English Channel. Captain Welland remained in the Canadian Navy, and took HMCS Athabaskan into service during the Korean War, assisting in the NATO blockade there. He was later to become Commanding Officer of naval airbase CFB Shearwater, and his distinguished career saw him retire with the rank of rear admiral. He had fulfilled his boyhood dream! Mr. Welland later had great success as an entrepreneur, retiring at the age of 82.

Meta Data

Medium:: Video
Owner:: Veterans Affairs Canada
Duration:: 3:33
Person Interviewed:: Robert Welland
War, Conflict or Mission:: Second World War
Location/Theatre:: North Atlantic Ocean
Battle/Campaign:: Battle of the Atlantic
Branch:: Navy
Units/Ship:: HMCS St-Laurent
Rank:: Lieutenant
Occupation:: Anti-submarine officer

Language selection

You Never See the Results of Your Work.

Heroes Remember